Frankfurt was probably founded originally by the Roman
legionnaires who overran Western Europe about 2,000 years
ago. Later the town, which lies next to a shallow ford on the
Main River was taken over by a Germanic tribe known as the
Franks, hence its name: Frankfurt = ford of the Franks.
Alternatively "furt" may refer to Frankfurt's longtime
importance as an inland port. This is suggested in a poem
praising Rav Shimon Kara (Hadarshan) who lived in Frankfurt
during the 1200s and authored the famous Yalkut
Shimoni.

Rav Shimon an der Pfort,

Kann die ganze Torah, auf ein wort.

Rav Shimon of the port,/ Knows the whole Torah, every
word.

Early Persecutions

Jews may have settled in Frankfurt as early as the 6th
century C.E. and flourished there for centuries. It was known
as Frankfurt on the Main, to distinguish it from another city
also called Frankfurt that is located on the Oder River.
(Note that gittin identify the location by the
river.)

On November 26, 4855/1095, Pope Urban II declared that
Christian Europe must "capture Jerusalem from the Moslems and
subject it under Christendom." Within one year a ragtag army
of knights and peasants was streaming from Europe like a
horde of locusts on its way to Jerusalem on a quest that
became known as the First Crusade.

"Does it make sense to go all the way to the Holy Land and
slaughter Moslems while the heretics in our midst remain
untouched?" they asked themselves. "The Jews must choose --
either baptism or the sword."

Jewish Europe became a bloodbath and the Frankfurt Jews and
their yeshiva were eradicated.

This was the history of Jewish Frankfurt throughout the
centuries -- a series of expulsions and rebuilding. By
5001/1241 the destroyed community was thriving and growing
once again, thanks to an influx of Jews fleeing persecution
in France.

But tragedy struck once again. Tension was mounting. Mongols
invading Europe from the East were rumored to be the lost Ten
Tribes coming to help the Jews. Franciscan and Dominican
friars were whipping the town's rabble to antisemitic frenzy.
And then came the spark that exploded the powder keg.

After centuries of Jewish martyrdom, an unthinkable thing
happened. A young Frankfurt Jew was lured into conversion.
Shocked and dismayed, the Jews in the town stirred up a
hornet's nest of protest.

"Who do these Jews think they are?" the Christians asked
themselves. "Is this how they react when we save one of their
brethren from the jaws of hell? Let's force the whole lot of
them to follow that Jew's example!"

On Shabbos night, 24 May 1241 a savage mob surged into the
Jewish quarter and axed open the Jews' barricaded doors. Jews
seized carving knives and sticks and desperately tried to
drive the enemy back, but it was hopeless. 70 Jews fled to a
military tower for protection but they too were murdered. A
small number of Jews managed to flee. Twenty- four reportedly
converted and 180 were murdered. The sifrei Torah were
ripped to shreds and every Jewish home and the town's two
yeshivos were burnt to the ground.

King Frederick II subsequently cleared the city of any
wrongdoing, but he allowed Frankfurt Jews to return under a
special Church treaty naming them imperialis servi
Camerae, vassals of the king, and imposing heavy
punishment on anyone who dared harm them. What caused this
sudden change of heart?

First, the king's decree filled the church's coffers with the
protection money constantly extorted from the Jews. And
second, it preserved the Jews "as a living memorial to the
Nazarene's memory."

Despite the king's decree, the community was wiped out once
more a century later in 5109/1349, perhaps as result of the
Black Death that had started two years earlier. Dozens of
European Jewish communities were eradicated at that time,
after some Jews were tortured into "admitting" that they had
set off the plague by poisoning wells.

It is also possible that this pogrom was simply an excuse to
seize the Jews' wealth. This time no one was given the chance
to baptize.

Amazingly, the Jews returned a mere 11 years later in
5120/1360. A sign of the times is the special tefilloh
to be said before dying al kiddush Hashem,
composed by Rav Asher, a rov in Frankfurt at that time. It
ends with the following brochoh:

"Blessed . . . Who sanctified us with His commandments and
commanded us to love His glorious and fearsome Name that was,
is, and will be forever, with all our heart and soul."

Special Swearing Ceremonies

Another sign of those brutal times were the special oaths
formulated for Jews in those days, known as Oath More
Judaico. French and German cities instituted bizarre and
shocking swearing ceremonies to scare the Jews into telling
the truth. In France, Jews were forced to wear crowns of
thorns on their necks and knees during the taking of an oath,
while thorn branches were pulled between their legs.

A Jewish oath ceremony used in Frankfort around 5152/1392 ran
as follows:

"The Jew shall stand on a sow's skin and the five books of
Moses shall lie before him. His right hand up to the wrist
shall lie on the book and he shall repeat after him who
administers the oath of the Jews as follows:

"`Regarding such property of which the man accuses you, you
know nothing of it nor do you have it. And may that sulphur
and pitch flow down upon your neck that flowed over Sodom and
Gomorrah, and swallow you up as it did Dosson and Avirom. And
may your dust never join other dust, and your earth never
join other earth in the bosom of Master Abraham if what you
say is not true and right.' " (abridged)

The special oath for Jews, which was designed to intimidate
the Jew taking it and also to humiliate him, was standard all
over Europe where a Jew had a dispute with a non-Jew. They
were very common until the 18th century, and persisted much
longer. Special oaths for Jews were still used in the
Frankfurt police courts as late as 5607/1847. There is a
record of such an oath in Rumania from 5647/1886. When the
Jews acquired general political rights in the 19th century
there was often a section specifying that they did not have
to take the special Jewish oath.

The Judengasse Ghetto

The Frankfurt gentiles eventually tired of having Jews in
their midst. For centuries Jewish homes and shuls had
clustered around the Christian cathedral, but now it was
claimed that the "wailing of the Jews in their synagogue" was
disturbing the services in the cathedral. The Jews were
gradually ousted from gentile society. From 5210/1450 they
were forced to wear special distinguishing labels. Christians
were also forbidden to attend Jewish celebrations and Jews
were barred from the city bathhouses.

Finally in 5222/1462, following a trend which had begun in
Italy, the Jews were herded to a specially constructed ghetto
called the Judengasse. A year later, there were 110
registered inhabitants. For three hundred years the Jews were
restricted to this tiny quarter even after their population
jumped over tenfold to about 3,000 by the 17th century. This
tiny ghetto was 330 meters long and only about 50 meters
wide. This is a total of only 16,500 square meters (165,000
square feet). An average apartment in Israel today is about
90 square meters, so that area could contain less than 200
apartments -- not counting room for streets and public
buildings. To accommodate the ever-increasing population the
ghetto had no way to stretch but upwards. Story was built on
story until the streets below became shrouded in an eternal
twilight.

"How dark and dingy this alley is!" a gentile wrote. "Too
many houses crammed into its narrow sides give it a black and
depressing aura."

The Pfefferkorn Fiasco and the Vincent
Purim

Antisemitism never ceased.

In 5270/1510 a famous attempt was made to burn every
Talmud in Germany. Johann Pfefferkorn, an apostate
Jew, wrote a series of nonsensical, but hate-filled,
pamphlets condemning the Talmud and demanding that it
be burned. Emperor Maximillian was persuaded by his spurious
arguments and the seforim of a number of Jewish
communities including Frankfurt were confiscated.

But then an unexpected contender leaped into the fight --
Johann Reuchlin, a renowned Catholic scholar and humanist.

"Concerning the Talmud," he wrote, "I must own that it
is to me a sealed book and it is evident that those who pass
judgment upon it have as little knowledge of it as I. They
have no idea of its nature or of its history, and
nevertheless talk as if they knew and understood clearly all
that it contains. I can only compare such people to those who
would venture to criticize algebra while they are totally
ignorant of the rudiments of arithmetic. If the Talmud
really were as bad as they affirm, then our ancestors,
who were much more religious than we, would long ago have put
an end to its existence."

A years-long feud resulted between the "Reuchlinists" who
supported Reuchlin and his opponents who were known as the
"Arnoldists," resulting even in bloodshed until Pope Leo X
finally interceded and the Talmud was spared. This
controversy was the direct forerunner of the Protestant
reform that split the Church.

As the Jews' prosperity grew, the hate and jealousy of their
gentile neighbors increased, especially that of those who
owed money to the Jewish moneylenders.

In 5372/1612 a group of tradesmen who were heavily in debt
appealed that the Jews should be expelled.

"They are living off our blood!" they complained.

Two years later their unrest erupted in the Fettmilch
rebellion. Led by Vincent Fettmilch, an enraged mob of
craftsmen and small traders stormed the Jewish sector
screaming, "Loot the Judengasse!"

Behind a makeshift barrier of barrels, benches and stones,
the Jewish men defended their street for several hours while
the women and children cowered in the Jewish cemetery, but
after a few hours the rabble forced their way in. The Jews
fled to the cemetery and the attackers went on a rampage of
looting and burning. Fearful that the riot would spread to
the rest of the city, armed citizens stopped the looters
after 13 hours, and 1,380 Jews were thrown out of the
town.

"We declared a fast for the 27th of Elul," recorded HaRav
Yosef Hahn, the town's dayan afterwards, "because on
this day we were expelled by the rebels." The refugees found
shelter in neighboring towns.

On February 28, 5376/1616, about a year-and-a-half later, the
civil rights of the returning Jews (who were allowed to
return, due to the intervention of the emperor and German
princes who outlawed and executed Fettlich and his
accomplices) were reinstated in a special ceremony.

"We declared the 20th of Adar a day of feasting to be called
Purim Vincent," wrote HaRav Yosef. "Indeed, miracles happened
on that day, for the rulers of Mainz and Darmstadt escorted
us with full honors together with a troop of soldiers in
battle dress carrying flags and banners and led by a band.

"The entire population stared open-mouthed and helped us
clear the rubble near our street entrance to clear the way
for two chariots, one carrying the emperor's standard and the
other one my father-in-law Rav Avrohom Breitingen the
gabbai, who had gout and couldn't walk."

The Jews never received any compensation for their destroyed
property.

Eisenmanger's "Endecktes Judenthum"

Another most famous antisemitic episode of this century was
stirred up by Johann Andreas Eisenmanger, who devoted decades
of his life trying to discredit the Talmud. He had
spent years studying Hebrew all over Europe and even spent
some years in Amsterdam in friendly contact with its local
talmidei chachomim who thought he was interested in
converting. But an event in 5440/1680 turned the budding
scholar into a raging monster.

Three gentiles had converted to Judaism and Eisenmanger was
"angered almost to death." He determined to write a work
revealing the "wickedness" of the Talmud and to "save
Christianity from danger."

Eisenmanger labored for the next 19 years translating from
193 seforim including the Talmud itself to
produce a venomous book 2,000 pages long named Endecktes
Judenthum (Unveiled Judaism). In 5460/1700 he
finally handed over his manuscript to a Frankfurt printer.

Terrified that this would lead to massacres such as had taken
place just a year earlier in Franken and Bamberg, the
Frankfurt Jews appealed to Sampson Wertheimer, the Jewish
banker of Emperor Leopold, to point out the dangers inherent
in such a book to his employer.

Remembering that the antisemitic mobs of the previous year
had also sacked the palaces of noblemen, the emperor forbade
the printing of the book and the distribution of the copies
already printed until it was carefully examined by gentile
and Hebrew scholars. It was 11 years before the book was
finally printed and by then Eisenmanger was dead and its
influence was blunted.

On January 14, 5471/1711, a fire broke out in the home of
Frankfurt's rov, HaRav Naftali Katz. The ghetto's wooden
houses burnt like straw and by morning 500 houses were
smoldering ruins. Many homeless Jews were hosted by friendly
non-Jews including HaRav Naftali himself who was offered
shelter by a master-tailor named Johannes Finger.

"May your descendants never be poor," HaRav Naftali blessed
him on his departure.

Sure enough, Jew's patronized the businesses of Finger's
descendants for generations and they always prospered.

Frankfurt's Gedolim

Through the centuries Frankfurt was famous for its rabbonim.
We already mentioned the baal Yalkut Shimoni who lived
there in the 12th century. Frankfurt's greatest rov in the
17th century was HaRav Yeshaya Halevi Horowitz, the famed
Shelo Hakodosh, who authored his famed Shenei Luchos
Habris in 5408/1648.

Another famed rov was Rav Meir Schiff who is remembered as
the "Maharam Schiff" on the gemora. He tragically
passed away in Prague in 5404/1644 at the young age of 36
"like the sun setting before its time" as is inscribed on his
headstone. Then there was HaRav Yosef Shmuel of Cracow who
printed the indispensable Messores Hashas in
5481/1721.

Two prominent rabbonim of Frankfurt in the 18th century were
HaRav Avrohom Broide, the author of Eshel Avrohom, and
HaRav Yaakov HaKohen Poppers, who was a staunch opponent of
Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the Ramchal. He forced Rav Moshe to
sign a declaration, "on pain of cheirem, to not teach
anyone in the world, whoever or wherever he be, the knowledge
of Kabbala either orally or from a sefer, not
even the writings of the Arizal or the Zohar, much
less those things I myself innovate."

A third great Frankfurt rov of that century was HaRav Yaakov
Yehoshua Falk, who authored the Pnei Yehoshua. The
Pnei Yehoshua eventually left Frankfurt and passed away in
Offenbach in 5516/1756.

In 5442/1772 Rav Pinchas the author of the Haflo'oh
became the chief rov of Frankfurt. Living there at the time
was another illustrious Frankfurt talmid chochom,
HaRav Nosson Hacohen Adler, who was the rav muvhak
of the Chasam Sofer. The Chasam Sofer left with his rebbe
in 1781; he had to leave because of his special minhagim
such as publicly reciting Bircas Cohanim every day
and davening a different nusach tefilloh.

HaRav Adler left to be rov in Boskowitz in what is now
Czechoslovakia. By around 5550/1790 he had returned to
Frankfurt. The Chasam Sofer never returned to Frankfurt, but
even many years later he used to sign himself, "Moshe
Hakotton of Frankfurt on the Main." HaRav Adler was
niftar in 5560/1800.

"We can find no consolation," cried the Baal Haflo'oh at
HaRav Nosson's funeral, "for he was not a son of this
earth."

The Haflo'oh vehemently opposed Moses Mendelssohn who had
translated the Torah into modern German in his Biur,
hoping to draw the Yiddish-speaking Jews closer to German
culture. In 5542/1782 the Haflo'oh branded the Biur
"an outrage committed against Israel."

Emancipation and Prosperity

By the 18th century things began to ease a little for the
Frankfurt Jews. Till then they had been forbidden to leave
their ghetto on Sundays and Christian holidays, but now they
could leave in an emergency to fetch a doctor or mail a
letter, provided they "reach their destination by the
shortest route and behave quietly and decorously."

By the end of that century, Frankfurt was a vitally important
banking and trading center and the Jews prospered more than
ever. The Jewish community's income was estimated at the
colossal sum of six million gulden.

Some idea of the Jews' wealth can be gained by examining the
taxes of a later year, 5660/1900. In that year 5,946 Jews
paid 2,540,812 marks in taxes while the 34,900 gentile
taxpayers of the city only paid 3,611,815 marks.

One of the town's richest families was the famed Rothschild
dynasty. The family's rise to power started with Mayer
Amschel Rothschild (5504/1744-5571/1811). His oldest son,
Amschel Mayer took over the Frankfurt banking house and his
four brothers set up branches all over Europe. The Frankfort
branch survived until 5671/1911.

In an article against antisemitism, Mark Twain recorded the
family's integrity and honesty.

"I suppose that the most picturesque example in history of a
trader's trust in his fellow-trader," wrote Twain, "was one
where it was not Christian trusting Christian, but Christian
trusting Jew.

"That Hessian Duke who used to sell his subjects to George
III to fight George Washington got rich at it; and by and by,
when the wars engendered by the French Revolution made his
throne too warm for him, he was obliged to flee the country.
He was in a hurry, and had to leave his earnings behind, nine
million dollars. He had to risk the money with someone,
without security.

"He did not select a Christian, but a Jew, a Jew of only
modest means, but of high character, a character so high that
it left him lonesome, Rothschild of Frankfurt. Thirty years
later, when Europe had become quiet and safe again, the Duke
came back from overseas, and the Jew returned the loan, with
interest added."

In 5566/1796 Napoleon captured Frankfurt after his
bombardment destroyed the North half of the Judengasse in a
fire. This started the emancipation which, after decades of
seesawing back and forth, culminated in 5624/1864 with
Frankfurt's Jews becoming the civil equals of their gentile
neighbors.

The Reformers

Unfortunately, concurrent with the Jews' emancipation came
the wild growth of Reform. In the American Occident and
American Jewish Advocate newspaper, an article of
5605/1845 expressed the shock.

"In our estimation," they wrote, "the above (Frankfort
Reform) Society is but an evidence of the deplorable state of
irreligion in which many of the continental Jews are sunk.
This new manifestation which consists in the rejection of the
rite of circumcision as well as the authority of the Talmud
is but a step, though a very important one, farther than that
which took place in London about three years ago.

"It has always been our boast that we were an homogeneous
people, that we had One G-d and One Law and it has been
reserved for modern times to give the lie to this honest
boast. It has been reserved for the ultra-liberalists to form
themselves into distinct sects with avowed peculiar
doctrines, by which they sever themselves from the majority
of Israel.

"We have thus a Temple Association at Hamburg, a congregation
of British (Reform) Jews at London, and a Reform Society at
Frankfurt. We must unhesitatingly condemn those who thus
bring disunion in Israel."

The writer futilely believed that the tide could be
turned.

"It may be," he wrote, "that these violent acts of the few
will cause the many to think of the danger which such
associations may ultimately cause to the congregation of G-
d, and induce a union of all who fear the L-rd to swear
fidelity to the Law of Sinai and promote a strict observance
of the precepts. At least we hope so."

The article continues to relate how a Reform Jew agreed to
circumcise his son only after his wife threatened him with
divorce.

"The following occurrence," he writes, "which took place this
week in our community, exhibits their truly religious
sentiment in the best light.

"A member of the board of our congregation refused, because
he is likewise a member of the Reform Society, to have his
newborn son circumcised. His wife employed all means of
persuasion to obtain from her husband the permission to have
her child entered in the covenant. That which could not be
obtained by the weeping eye and the mild petition of the
wife, was at length yielded to the threatened prospective of
an entire dissolution of the marriage.

"The angry earnestness of the wife effected this much, that
the father, though he did not entirely consent to the
circumcision, left the field, and let the religious act be
performed, without, however, sanctioning this holy
consecration by his presence."

For the reformers the Moshiach was not their goal. All over
Europe Reform rabbis declared, ""We know no fatherland except
that to which we belong by birth or citizenship." Frankfurt's
Reform Jews reportedly went even further.

"If the Messiah arrived in our city," they reportedly
quipped, "we would have to meet him at the gate and urge him
to remove himself since his presence would obstruct the
complete emancipation of German Jewry."

Little did they know what would happen a century later.

HaRav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch

There was a danger that Orthodoxy in Frankfurt might soon
become a relic of the past. But in 5611/1851, 11 men received
government sanction to separate from the community and
created the new Israelitische Religionsgesellenschaft
(Jewish Society for Religion-- IRG). They sent a letter to
HaRav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch, who heroically gave up his
position as chief rav of Moravia and Austrian Silesai (where
he administered a community of some 50,000) to come and be
their rov. By 5636/1876 the Orthodox IRG
austritsgemeinde (separate community) of Frankfurt
received government recognition and set the precedent for
similar communities.

The leaders of the Khal Adas Jeshurun community after HaRav
Hirsch were HaRav Shlomo Zalman Breuer, HaRav Hirsch's son-
in-law. One of Frankfurt's best known citizens of this time
was R' Yaakov Rosenheim, one of the founders of Agudas
Yisroel.

Not all the Orthodox of Frankfurt belonged to Rav Hirsch's
secessionist kehilla. In 5638/1878 Rav Mordechai
Horovitz, a talmid of HaRav Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhel,
was appointed the rov of the town's Orthodox Jews who had
remained part of the general community. It was assumed that
this was mainly in response to the pressure exerted by the
founding of the IRG as a separate kehilla. Up until
then they were not allowed to daven together, and
earlier the mikveh was closed. A shul with 900
seats was erected for them in 5642/1882 and it was enlarged
to 1,300 seats in 5661/1901.

Destruction and Survival

When Hitler seized power in 5693/1933 over 26,000 Jews were
living in Frankfurt. Plans to destroy the German Jewish
community were implemented immediately and its final
destruction started on November 10, 5698/1938 when 300 German
shuls were destroyed on Kristallnacht. Soon
afterwards the Khal Adas Jeshurun community was forced to
remerge with the general community and on January 8,
5604/1944 a last transport of 56 Jews was sent to the
Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.

However, the Khal Adas Jeshurun community started by HaRav
Hirsch lives on. It continued thousands of miles away in
Washington Heights, New York, first under the leadership of
HaRav Joseph Breuer zt"l, and is still thriving till
this day.

Above all, the spirit of Frankfurt lives on, the indomitable
spirit to thrive and grow in the face of all opposition.

(Note: Many quotes and facts in this article are from Y.
Alfasi's, Glimpses of Jewish Frankfurt.)